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The BSN is a cross-cloud, cross-portal, cross-framework global infrastructure network used to deploy and operate all types of blockchain applications. It provides a shared blockchain resource environment with the twin goals of reducing the cost of technology adoption and supporting interoperability between different blockchain applications (DApps).

Bianjie has launched the first open permissioned blockchain on China's Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN). This WenChang blockchain is powered by Cosmos' interoperable blockchain ecosystem. WenChang Chain is compliant with Chinese enterprise standards and offers permissioned controls. The global city node infrastructure, deployed by BSN, presents developers with a ready, open blockchain network so they can focus on refining the application layer, develop business logic, and deploy dApps in an easy and more cost-effective way.

"For now, it appears unlikely Ethereum will be dethroned in the short-term. Ethereum has a very firm and clear first-mover advantage over its competitors. It not only has the highest dominance in terms of the network value but also outdoes the competition in several key factors. In a nutshell, these factors are-the number of active users; the ERC-20 (Ethereum) token being the most adopted standard for newly issued crypto-assets; third party adoption for service and infrastructure; and overall network security."

Visa is piloting a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) that will allow banks to offer bitcoin services. The Visa Crypto APIs pilot program will let clients "easily connect into the infrastructure provided by Visa's partner, Anchorage, a federally chartered digital asset bank, to allow their customers to buy and sell digital assets such as Bitcoin as an investment within their existing consumer experiences." Visa is already working with crypto companies to issue bank cards and has partnered with 35 crypto firms to date, but this is the first time the company has offered crypto services to banks.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Danmarks Nationalbank, Central Bank of Iceland, Norges Bank and Sveriges Riksbank today launched the BIS Innovation Hub Nordic Centre in Stockholm. The BIS Innovation Hub's work programme is currently focused on six areas: suptech and regtech; next generation financial market infrastructures; central bank digital currencies; open finance; cyber security; and green finance. Work related to these themes is spread among the various Hub Centres, although specific projects have not yet been finalised for the Nordic Centre.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore launched the Global CBDC Challenge, to seek innovative retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) solutions to enhance payment efficiencies and promote financial inclusion. Partners include the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Firms around the world are invited to submit innovative solutions that can address 12 problem statements centred on the CBDC instrument, distribution; and infrastructure.

This article discusses some of the new types of risks introduced by DeFi that are inherent to blockchain systems along with traditional types of financial risks in DeFi that manifest in new ways: (i) interconnections with the traditional financial system, (ii) operational risks stemming from underlying blockchains, (iii) smart contract-based vulnerabilities, (iv) other governance and regulatory risks, and (v) scalability challenges. In an effort to remove humans and automate as much as possible through smart contracts, DeFi has introduced or amplified these risks. The growth of DeFi will depend on its ability to navigate and build compatibility with traditional finance and on how laws and regulations respond. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is that the DeFi ecosystem continues to grow while its underlying base layer (public infrastructure such as Bitcoin or Ethereum) faces growing pains.

TransferWise has launched TransferWise for Banks in the U.S. This allows banks, credit unions and other financial institutions to integrate TransferWise's API directly into their infrastructure, so customers can make international payments from within their banking app.

The Swiss Centre will examine the integration of digital central bank money into a DLT infrastructure. This new form of digital central bank money would be aimed at facilitating the settlement of tokenised assets between financial institutions. The project will be carried out as part of a collaboration between the SNB and the SIX Group in the form of a proof of concept.

The Next Capital markets Union High-Level Group brings together European personalities recognized for their expertise in capital markets, digitalization and/or financial innovation and reflects the viewpoint of the real economy including SMEs, investors, financial intermediaries and market infrastructures. The members have been appointed by the Ministers of Finance.

The Central Bank [of the Bahamas] is exploring an early entry of Project Sand Dollar into Abaco. It will allow the Bank to test aspects of the emergency wireless communications features that would enable rapid financial services recovery; and to connect with many retail businesses early in their recovery process. The Sand Dollar infrastructure is being designed to connect with bank accounts, so that remote access to these facilities is also quickly re-enabled for deposits and withdrawals.

Tencent and Alibaba's Ant Financial expanded into financial services like lending and asset management only after online payments were well entrenched. One key lesson from China's experience is that these changes do not occur overnight. It took years to develop this infrastructure and for enough consumers to trust Internet companies with aspects of their financial lives. But perhaps most importantly, fintech innovation came about because a few companies would not accept missing pieces of their environment as a given. They built new, more efficient systems rather than waiting for incumbents to do it for them.

RTGS.global aims to link together the existing wholesale payments infrastructure run by central banks within their borders, to settle cross-border payments in real time, and vastly cut down on the costs and burden of the correspondent banking system.

What is laid bare for the world to see is an architecturally schizophrenic code artifact claiming to be a new reliable platform for global payment infrastructure. Yet the actual implementation diverges from this goal in bizarre ways when one actually dives into the codebase. I'm sure there is an interesting story about the internal corporate politics of this project and as such I thought it apt to do some diligence on what I see as a truly strange set of architectural choices that break the entire system and put consumers at risk.

Facebook is launching Facebook Pay to facilitate payments across its Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp apps. It's built on existing financial infrastructure and partnerships, and will be separate from Calibra and Libra network.

"etwork infrastructure to facilitate the secure availability of funds in real-time*. With Mastercard Send, PayPal users can transfer their account balances to eligible Mastercard cards seamlessly and conveniently, typically within seconds.

Regardless of your view, it is clear that bitcoin has driven society to think more broadly about the nature of money, the way we engage in economic activity, and the role of financial intermediaries and technology infrastructure in our markets.

As a result of the digitization and datafication of finance, combined with new technologies, cybersecurity and technological risks are now evolving into major threats to financial stability and national security. In addition, the entry of major technology firms into finance - TechFins - brings new issues. The first arises in the context of new forms of potentially systemically important infrastructure (such as data and cloud services providers). The second arises because data - like finance - benefits from economies of scope and scale and from network effects and - even more than finance - tends towards monopolistic or oligopolistic outcomes, resulting in the potential for systemic risk from new forms of "Too Big to Fail" and "Too Connected to Fail" phenomena. This paper suggests some basic principles about how such risks can be monitored and addressed, focusing in particular on the role of regulatory technology ("RegTech").

"The Eurosystem therefore welcomes the strategic initiative of a number of major European banks to create a true pan-European retail payment solution that has the potential to meet the vision of our strategy. The proposed solution would be based on the SEPA credit transfer instant (SCT Inst) scheme, which is in our view the correct approach as it is future-oriented. And it could capitalise from day one on existing powerful and sophisticated infrastructures, such as the Eurosystem's TIPS."

Kookmin and Atomics Lab will develop digital asset custody services that combine Atomics Lab technology and KB Kookmin Bank's internal control infrastructure and information protection technologie